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Saturday, February 11, 2012

Cover Art - Kiss the Dead by Laurell K. Hamilton

Laurell K. Hamilton posted the cover to Kiss the Dead, the 21st Anita Blake book on her blog a couple of days ago. And I love it. It doesn't scream urban fantasy but has a nice murder mystery flair to it. The novel releases June 5.

I keep hoping that Laurell's writing will return to its earlier polished and taught form, but then I noticed her recent blog article on Sensuality and the Writer where she goes on for paragraphs about the minutiae of hair for a minor character. Whatever happened to the generally accepted philosophy of take care of the big picture and the small details will take of themselves? One can only hope.

Urgh. This series kills me, it really does. The 'Anita Blake' series used to be so good, now it has pitiably declined into a series of sex, and little else. With tireless descriptions of men's hairstyles and 'effeminate' masculinity (how? Just, how?).

And even worse is that nowadays, Hamilton comes across like an egocentric artist. If anyone dares hint that the 'Anita Blake' series aint' what it used to be, she calls them prude and claims that Americans can't handle all the sex her series now requires. When her TV deal with IFC fell through, she ranted on and on about how unfair it is that other people's adaptations are doing so well, in the genre she 'pioneered'. And, of course, the rumours circulate that she has a contract which stipulates no story editor is to work on her books.

I don't care so much that she has changed directions and added the sex, a lot of PNR and even UF uses this alot but the quality of the writing is so poor. Lousy grammar, first draft narrative. Just awful. Your remark about "no story editor" makes sense. I too miss the earlier dynamic Anita, not the new two dimensional navel gazing Anita. Fortunately there is some very good fanfic out there superior to her later work that is worth seeking out.